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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

My dog Rosie

by K.M. Humphreys

Rosie is my beagle mix.
We’re not really sure what she’s mixed with, but she’s not full
bred. My husband and I adopted her two
years ago on October 17th.

She
came into our lives as a scared little puppy.
Not a puppy really, she was six, but she acted like one and still does
sometimes. We believe she was abused
and/or neglected prior to arriving at the shelter. She was scared when the woman brought her
into the little room where we get introduced.
Rosie didn’t want to come near us at first, but she eventually started
coming near my husband after a few minutes.
It took her a little longer to come to me.

At
first we limited her access to certain areas of the house. Now she has full access when we’re home, and
only kept in our bedroom when we’re not home.
She loves our bedroom, or at least our bed. It’s her favorite spot in the whole
house. Even when we are home, she is
often found sleeping on our bed. She
also likes our sofa and the futon.

She’s
overcome a lot of her shyness. She still
will run if a stranger tries to pay some attention to her. With us she’s no longer scared. She has a lot more energy than she did when
we first got her.

It is
said that dogs are a man’s best friend.
In our case she’s a woman’s best friend.
Rosie follows me around wherever I go in the house. If she sees me get the keys out, she’s at the
garage door hopeful for a car ride. My
husband will be petting her and as soon as she sees me, she walks away from him
to come to me. She mostly avoids my husband.
She only willingly goes to my husband
when she’s scared – such as a big bad thunderstorm.

She is
a silly puppy when it comes to eating.
She insists on dumping her food on the floor to eat it. We always know when she’s eating as we hear
her tilting the bowl and all the food falling to the mat we have under her
dish.

However,
as she’s getting older, she has the possibilities of more illnesses. We recently found a mass on her paw. We took her to the vet to diagnose and they
ended up doing a biopsy to make sure it wasn’t cancerous. We are still waiting for the results.

While
she was under the anesthesia, they also removed a cracked tooth, clipped her
nails and cleaned her teeth. She worries us when she gets sick. We're just glad she's okay.

What a cutie! We're on our second dog. Emily was with us for 15 years; my husband found her on the street in New York City when she was just a puppy. She moved to Nashville with us a year or two later, and lived to be 15 1/2.

It took at least a couple years after that before we were ready for another dog, and we went in the total opposite direction. Emily was big and black, a 75 lbs shepherd/doberman mix. Zoe is a 16 lbs cream colored fluffball, a llasa apso mixed with something that has longer legs. She prefers me to anyone else in the household, but that's probably because I feed and walk her. Emily was more partial to my husband.

I love dogs! Hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday - and everyone else as well! xoxo